word for the day: talent is not enough

“Belief lifts your talent; Passion energizes it; Initiative activates it; Focus directs it; Preparation positions it; Practice sharpens it; Perseverance sustains it; Courage tests it; Teachability expands it; Character protects it; Relationships influence it; Responsibility strengthens it; Teamwork multiplies it”. - John Maxwell, "Talent Is Never Enough”

Current song: True Colors by Cindy Lauper (Glee Version is also playing on Ipod)

my tuesday treat

... because I finished Book I and the Family Code yesterday. (May pingot na nga lang ang manok ng kinuha ko ang picture na ito. :) )

Current Song:  I Miss My Friend by Darryl Worley

prince of persia, sands of time

"It is said some lives are linked across time. They are connected by an ancient calling--Destiny."

 

Today, I took some time off after a long day with Jurado and saw Prince of Persia with Zeny.  I remember playing this game on my black and white screened computer, waaaay before plants vs. zombies wanted to eat our brains out. It was one of those computer games I was addicted to, standing par with Carmen Sandiego (Okaaay, my age shows here). I should say that Disney gave enough justice on this one--fairly made for an adventure movie. I brought to the edge of my seat the whole time. Although, SM Cinemas should be sued for refund since there are around four portions that are obviously cut (not to mention the poor resolution and muffled sound system. We should have really drove off to Makati). Going back to the movie, although it was good, it was also too Disney-y--everybody happy! Jake Glyllenhaal was hot--perfect!

 *Poster says: Defy time. I'd rather not. But I wish I can make it move slower. :p

 

little miss sunshine

I finally gave in to my sister's request that we sit down and see this movie on DVD.

Favorite Quote: Richard: There's two kinds of people in this world, there's winners and there's losers. Inside each and everyone of you, deep inside the core of your being is a winner waiting to be awakened and unleashed upon the world. Okay, you know what the difference is? Winners don't give up. 

last of our days

Just in time on my reflections on being myself and savoring my life, a friend sent me this video through Facebook. It spoke to me, so am sharing this to everyone. I hope you find something for yourselves in this. Happy day, every all! :)

live life like eating sashimi

In this entry I will tell you a glimpse of my love affair with sashimi is...and how living life should be likened to it. :)

You see, one of my favorite foods in this world is Shake Sashimi (Raw Salmon).  Eating this Japanese delicacy gives me that exhilarating feeling that no other food can ever give me...and the experience is always, always incomparable.

In a Japanese restaurant, my mouth will start to water as I tell the waiter my order of salmon sashimi. After which, my thoughts will begin longing about it. The moment it's served, my eyes widen with excitement and much joy seeing how orange it is. Then, as soon as my chopsticks holds on my salmon, I will begin to feel fuzzy and giddy inside. The moment I put it in my mouth, there is a stillness that would envelope me and suddenly my whole being explodes in excitement and extreme happiness. I would always, always chew my salmon slowly and reflectively. All my senses are directed to it that is why I savor every little bit of it even if I always catch myself close my eyes as I do this. In that short period of time, I have nothing else in mind nor was there anything else that matters, except my sashimi.

Today, in the fourth installment of the series A Life of No Regrets, Bro. Bo speaks about NO RUSH. He said that life should be lived enjoying the present moment without being haunted by the past nor anxious of the future. Because your now is a gift from God--He has blessed you with now and all you have to do is enjoy every bit of it. Whether it may be a prize or a pain which is in front of you, it is God's blessing. Hence, we should not hurry on letting it just go by unnoticed. Deliberate living. Deliberate appreciation of life. :)

I savor my sashimi. Perhaps, I now know how I should be savoring my life. :)

Current Songs: I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing by Aerosmith and Simple Things by Jim Brickman and Rebecca Lynn Howard

reunions feel like an old pair of shoes

Tonight, I spontaneously decided to meet up with Doyti, an old friend from an inter-uni organization I was part of. Conversations over dinner and coffee with someone I haven't seen for years now was something I needed this week. Luckily, we were both free and finally we were able to get together. After hours of catching up, re-telling stories on old loves, and a few commentaries on Philippine politics, I was already contented on this pitstop.

On my way home, I "picked up" Melvyn, another friend from waaaay back in high school along the road. Hahaha! He was hailing the cab behind the one I was riding on when I called him from my rolled down window. I asked him to hop in (since our houses were just several blocks away) and we ended up finding ourselves talking over cups of tea and frap about our lives, people and yesteryears.

Am really happy that no matter how much time has passed, you'll still find old friends whom you can just pick things up from where you left of, know that things have changed but you have not really changed at all. :)

Describe Tonight: COMFORTING


Oh! By the way, I bumped into two other friends whom I just exchanged hellos with. Nice eh?

unproductive

Current Song: Beautiful Day by U2


Describe today: UNPRODUCTIVE

...except that I cleaned my room, fixed my bookshelf, changed my blog template, and danced. Later, I will meet up with an old friend for dinner.

When I meant I was unproductive, I meant I was bar-unproductive. Taking this time off to distract myself and get my wheels moving again. I was sent off-track by some useless thoughts and went pity-partying for the last 48 hours.

Lesson learned for the last 18 hours: Sometimes, doing something is worse than doing nothing. (Meredith said that too in one of the Grey's episodes. It pays to listen sometimes, Faith!)

My promise: Starting Monday, I will be productive again. I have a bar to hurdle, you see?

reflections on my almost near-death experience

late post.
19 April 2010
Coron, Palawan


1) Never swim without surveying your course. Know how deep or shallow the water is. This way you'll know what to expect.

2) Keep looking ahead. Looking down will only scare the hell out of you! Keep your eyes fixed on your goal.

3) Look up, you'll get air. In life the Lord wants us to look up to Him and He'll readily give us the provision we need.

4) Keep swimming!

5) When everything else fails, you have friends who'll come to save you.

note to self: say this more often

a note from a god: it won't be long

Dean Willard Riano wrote this on my Civil Procedure Book. :) Am inspired.

not everyone finds something like this

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. 

True friendships feel like family.

take me back to coron

Before the everything starts to be stressful, my law school friends and I went to a trip which will forever etch good memories in our lives. Off we went to Coron, Palawan. :) Although, I initially hesitated to join this trip, am now so happy I changed my mind. Everything was perfect (except for a mishap that almost took my life. hahaha!).

Clear waters. Fine sand. Bright Sun. Fresh food. Chilled beer. Vodka Kurant. Good friends. Much laughter. Good times.

Coron, for now we have to part ways. But I promise to be back.

My summer is now over, but has been perfectly defined.

K for K

Calling all running enthusiasts, compassionate givers or just anybody who wants to have fun and enjoys fellowship!

The Light of Jesus Catholic Community, the spiritual family of The Feast, is organizing a run on 29 May 2010, 5.30 a.m. at the Mall of Asia Grounds dubbed as K for K, Run a Kilometer for Kerygma, the 2010 Kerygma Fun Raiser. This is for the benefit of the ministries it is supporting such as Anawim (our ministry for the abandoned elderly) and other affiliate ministries.

For more info, visit www.lightfam.com/kfork

Easter Feast

Happy Easter everyone!

Today, the whole Catholic Church is celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus from death. This is the focal point of the Faith. :) And today, I celebrated it with my family at the Grand Feast at SMX. All the Feasts around Manila are invited to just this one Feast. 

Bro. Bo Sanchez, started a new series--OVERCOME. 

He spoke about turning our greatest failures into our biggest successes. He likened our lives into a big picture made up of puzzle pieces. That in putting them together, we may find one odd piece that may seem to not fit, yet, little did we know it does fit and it will complete the picture God intend to paint out of our lives. Am now excited to hear the other installments on the coming weeks. :)

 Look for the Feast nearest you and start receiving God's avalanche of blessings in store for you! Be blessed, everyone! :)

beat the heat: halo-halo

On Black Saturday, after we had our pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Marilao, Bulacan, we gave in to the craving for something really cold. NLEX is clear, fairly a few cars running to Manila so the trip was quite fast and easy. But the sun was scorching hot and glaring that we can't look outside our tinted windows without sunglasses. 

Great time for Halo-Halo (a Filipino delicacy made of a mixture of sweetened fruits, beans and jelly with crushed ice and milk, topped with ube and leche flan.) My mouth begins to water again as I typed that away. Hahaha! Going back to my story, one of my siblings, am just not sure now who, remembered a small carinderia in Tondo which serves the best halo-halo we've ever tasted. One problem: we do not know where that can be found exactly. So, called our cousins who brought us there some time ago and agreed to meet with them. 

To make the long story short, we had our servings of the delicious halo-halo and here are some of the pictures we took. :) 

This is where you find the Halo-halo haven!

Look for this signage! She makes the best halo-halo there is!

..and it's only Php 25.00!

 I'm not sure if she's Aling Consuelo (which I doubt) but she will surely serve you your halo-halo!

Here it is! (sorry, it's blurred)

see? they're loving it! :) (my sister and she, one of the three cousins we phoned)

Cha-cha is loving it too!

*Slurp! ;p

reads for the holy week

...just because he loved us much

Today is Palm Sunday and the whole Catholic Church is now entering the Holy Week--a very special season of remembering the Passion and Death of Jesus on the Cross. 

Today we commemorate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem which manifested the coming of the kingdom that the King-Messiah was going to accomplish by the Passover of his Death and Resurrection. It is with the celebration of that entry on Palm Sunday that the Church's liturgy solemnly opens Holy Week (560, Catechism of the Catholic Church). We are encouraged to offer prayers and sacrifices to be one in the sufferings of Jesus. In that way, we can hope to have our own resurrection at the end of time.

I would like to share a video which Fr. Titus shared with us in the Mass earlier at the Feast.  This spoke about the love of the Father for us, that He can sacrifice His only beloved Son for our Salvation from eternal damnation. May this help you reflect on God's infinite and unconditional love for each of us. He loves us more than we can ever know. :)

details in the fabric

Current song: Details in the Fabric | Jason Mraz feat. James Morrisson

"If it’s a broken part - replace it. If it’s a broken arm then brace it. If it’s a broken heart then face it. And hold your own, know your name, and go your own way, and everything will be fine." Details in the Fabric | Jason Mraz

Trains and my President for 2010

I wrote this article for my Civil Law Review 2 class. Atty. Uribe asked us to write an article about who will we vote for President and why. This is my first time to finally declare who I will vote. 

_________

I was in a train going to downtown Toronto when I blurted out to a friend, “Sana ganito rin sa Pilipinas. Maayos ang transporation system. Malinis. Disiplinado.” (I hope the Philippines would be like this. We’d have good transport system. Clean. Disciplined.) With that comment, we started a long discussion of the reality of where the Philippines had gone, the evils of corruption, and the need for a strong leader. It was summer of 2002 and from then I always hoped for a President who has that genuine desire to improve the lives of the Filipino people and carry out this desire into actions.

Two years later, I find myself in Singapore on board the MRT to Chinatown. I was with a Singaporean friend and I asked her with curiosity and a bit of envy, “How come Singapore is so disciplined? Is this taught in school?” She paused for a second or two, and said, “I really do not know, but I just grew up in a society like this.” Then she went into the how Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore and envisioned it to rise above all the Southeast Asian Countries. Disciplined leadership.

 Among all the candidates vying for the Presidential seat, I feel that Richard Gordon possesses the strength of a great leader. As his name suggests, (Richard means, strong leader; brave one) he has proven himself in countless ways which includes development of Subic and Olongapo, resuscitating the moribund Philippines Tourism Industry while he was Tourism Secretary, enacting worthwhile laws such as Republic Act No. 9369, the New Automated Election System law while he was Senator, just to name a few.

Gordon may not possess the charm like those of the other candidates, in fact he is being accused of being snobbish and cocky, yet I believe that he is the only one with the political will to serve the function of the Chief Executive.  He may stay low on the surveys over the more popular candidates, but who ever said that good leadership is possessed by the popular? We need a leader who is willing to get his hand dirty with the true problems of society. We need a leader who works even without being noticed. We need a leader who would not be swayed by the criticisms of his detractors and will carry out his job even at the face of oppositions. We need a leader who has dignity and values our identity as Filipinos. As I’ve concluded in my train ride in Toronto and Singapore: the Philippines needs a leader with iron hands. Filipinos, we do not need a savior. We need a leader.

Most of the people I speak to say they would have wanted to vote for Gordon, but they feel he might not win. How will he ever win when everybody else thinks that way? Perhaps, people are afraid of casting a vote on an underdog. Electing a president is not a popularity contest nor is it a gambling feat. It is an investment for the next six years which fruits we will pass on to the next generation. We do not invest our hard earn money to just any business. Hence we should also not invest our votes to just any candidate. We have already inherited a gamut of debts and problems. Let this be our chance to redeem ourselves. I dare these people to step out of their fears and finally assert their choices.

Let us realize that this election is no longer about who looks better on TV advertisements, who sings the more novel jingles or gives out the sweetest, hopefully-not-empty promises. This is not the time to be sentimental. This is no time for the circus all over again. This is about a true show of patriotism to our motherland. This is about putting up someone whose authority we will respect and trust and will vow to hold that respect and trust with utmost dignity and ability.

With that until election day comes, I will keep on riding trains.